A profile of Esmé Kirby, the conservationist who formed the Snowdonia National Park Society. Her career began as an actress, and at 23 she married Thomas Firbank, whose bestselling book, I Bought a Mountain (1940) tells of their married life at Dyffryn, a 3,000-acre farm near Capel Curig. Their marriage ended as the Second World War began but Esmé continued to farm on her own in the rugged Snowdonia landscape and made a success of it. She remarried and became a volunteer conservationist and formed the Snowdonia National Park Society, to ensure the mountains were protected from future development.
Review
"How unusual a woman farmer would have been in that environment! And an outsider, too, without any farming background. Yet the local farming community saw her strength and determination, and helped her to succeed... She made a success of Dyffryn against all the odds, leaving a lasting legacy. We might all know of the farm through Thomas Firbank's book, but it is still there and thriving, for us all to enjoy, because of the sheer hard work and dedication of an extraordinary woman – the young wife he took to a dilapidated hill farm in Snowdonia eighty years ago." - Suzy Ceulan Hughes, Gwales
Review
"How unusual a woman farmer would have been in that environment! And an outsider, too, without any farming background. Yet the local farming community saw her strength and determination, and helped her to succeed... She made a success of Dyffryn against all the odds, leaving a lasting legacy. We might all know of the farm through Thomas Firbank's book, but it is still there and thriving, for us all to enjoy, because of the sheer hard work and dedication of an extraordinary woman – the young wife he took to a dilapidated hill farm in Snowdonia eighty years ago." - Suzy Ceulan Hughes, Gwales
